The Dallas area is among the top five markets in the country for home price increases in the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price report.

Dallas prices rose 7.6 percent in October from the same month in 2013, the closely watched housing index shows.

Only Miami, San Francisco and Las Vegas had greater home price gains.

And Dallas’ increase was significantly ahead of the composite 4.5 percent home price rise in the 20 major markets Case-Shiller surveys monthly.

Dallas’ October rate of home price growth was slightly ahead of the 7.4 percent annual increase in September, according to Case-Shiller. Dallas was among the markets that saw bigger price gains in October than the previous month.

“We are seeing hints that prices could end 2014 on a strong note and accelerate into 2015,” S&P’s David M. Blitzer said in the report. “Two months ago, all 20 cities were experiencing weakening annual price increases.

“This time, 12 cities had weaker annual price growth, but eight saw the pace of price gains pick up,” he said. “Seasonally adjusted, all 20 cities had higher prices than a month ago.”

Dallas-area home prices are now about 13 percent higher than they were before the recession and at a record level in the Case-Shiller index. Nationwide prices are still 16 percent below where they were in 2006.

Case-Shiller’s index tracks the prices of specific single-family homes. The index survey does not include condominiums and townhouses.

While some analysts are expecting housing prices to moderate in the year ahead, David Brown who heads the Dallas office of Metrostudy Inc. expects more substantial gains.

“We are expecting another year of strong appreciation in 2015,” Brown said. “Even if job growth were to slow from the torrid pace of 2014, demands for housing is likely to remain very strong into 2015.

“The Dallas-Fort Worth market is heading into 2015 with even less inventory than was in the market a year ago,” he said. “We expect the appreciation rate in 2015 to be fairly similar to 2014.”